


No Need for Strangers

by billiethepoet



Category: Pacific Rim
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:05:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billiethepoet/pseuds/billiethepoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt takes the time to closely examine what he saw in Hermann's mind during their drift with the Kaiju.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Need for Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the lovely moonblossom for the beta!

The clock stops and the celebration begins. It’s more subdued for some than others. Herc Hansen has a drink with the men in the control booth, accepts a few sympathetic pats on the shoulder, then retreats to his bunk. The city of Hong Kong sets off fireworks and people flood the streets. The clean up waits until the morning. 

Newton Geiszler pours glass after glass of champagne (and where did that come from anyway? Was someone stockpiling it?) down his throat. He was right, he had won, and he found the crucial piece of information that allowed them to close the breach. Well, Hermann had helped with the last part. Newt finds Hermann in the crowd, clear on the other side of the hangar deck, awkwardly accepting a shot of whiskey from gracious members of the repair crew. Newt laughs because he can practically hear Hermann sputtering and coughing as the shot goes down the wrong way. Maybe that’s the drift, or ten years of working together, or just the champagne in Newt’s own bloodstream. Either way, it’s funny. 

Newt doesn’t notice when Hermann limps down the hall to call it a night but when he finally collapses in his own bunk, Hermann’s memories swallow his dreams in disjointed waves. 

****************  
It’s data. It’s all data and Newt is a scientist first and foremost. The memories you see with your partner in the drift stay with you but not in the forefront of your mind. You have to go digging for them, have to concentrate on bringing them up. It’s kind of like reading a book in a strong breeze, Newt decides. You have to clench tightly to the pages you want to read else the wind will just flip them away from you. The jaeger pilots won’t do it to each other. It’s some sort of honor code with them, but Newt’s a scientist so he figures that doesn’t apply to him. 

It takes all morning, and most of his hangover, to pull the pieces together. Newt watches as snippets of Hermann’s childhood, a sad, lonely childhood, play across his mind. Hermann grows into his teens and only becomes more isolated and alone. He finds comfort in maths and spends more and more time in front of a chalk board. In university, there’s a man that Hermann thinks loves him. Newt wants to turn away when they kiss, when they make love, but you can’t turn away from something in your own mind. The echo of Hermann’s heartbreak when the man leaves him breaks Newt’s own heart. No one gets close after that. The tightly buttoned shirts and obsessive organization keep everyone at a distance as Hermann finishes uni. 

Then comes the leg. Hermann takes a vicious stab wound outside a gay club in Berlin shortly after he graduates. He’s not even involved in the fight; he’s leaving the club alone and gets caught in the crossfire, so to speak. The knife enters against his hip, destroying a large chunk of muscle before tearing down nearly to his knee. He almost bleeds out, crying, in a dirty alleyway before the ambulance gets to him. Newt flips through the surgeries and months of physical therapy as quickly as he can without losing the stream of memories entirely. Newt can feel the lead ball of anxiety Hermann lived with for months as he waits to hear if his injury will keep him out of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. In the end, Marshall Pentecost himself welcomes Hermann to the corps. If Newt hadn’t been laying on his bunk, his knees would have collapsed in relief. 

Next is their first lab together. It was in Berlin, far from the front and with dodgy equipment. They spent two years there, proving themselves and trying not to kill each other. Newt had been sure Hermann had hated him back then. And maybe he did at first, but from this angle Newt can feel the ember of affection growing behind Hermann’s locked down exterior. He never laughed at Newt’s jokes, only ever complained about the mess, and never once went out for drinks after work. Now Newt can see the secret smiles and he can feel the bloom of warmth that grows in Hermann’s chest over the years until it nearly bursts in a flood of panic when Hermann finds him after the first drift with the Kaiju brain. 

The nearly overpowering wash of relief, love, and fear Hermann feels when Newt agrees to let him share the neural load for the second drift shouldn’t be a surprise but it’s not the conclusion Newt thought this data would lead to. 

The pages drift close as the memories Hermann and Newt shared come to an end. His bunk is quiet, the hallways are quiet, and all that can be heard is Newt’s shout of “Well, fuck!”. 

***************  
Hermann avoided the hangover and has been cleaning the lab since 09:00 hours. There’s been no official decision yet on what to do with the last of the Shatterdomes, but it’s only been about 12 hours since the breach collapsed. Hermann assumes they’ll be ordered to close down most of the facility and leave behind a skeleton crew to monitor the breach in case it reopens. Whether or not the research division will stay or go is anyone’s guess. 

He’s been fighting the Kaiju, not as directly as a jaeger pilot but still fighting, for ten years of his life and they’ve finally won. Hermann never really considered it as a viable possibility before. It was always the goal but never the reality. After the initial flush of victory has faded, it leaves Hermann feeling empty and cold. What will there be to do now? 

Cleaning and putting the lab back in order calms Hermann. It keeps him from panicking about where he’ll land when this is all said and done. 

“Why are you cleaning? We should still be celebrating!” Newt’s voice pulls Hermann from his thoughts. 

“Some of us are tired of celebrating. And you left entrails on the floor. It’s disgusting.” 

“Listen, about the drift...” Newt stands a few feet in front of Hermann, head ducked and running a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. His shirt sleeves are rolled up and his tattoos are on full display. Hermann will miss those. “About the drift. I saw your memories.”

Hermann feels a cold chill go up his spine. He tried to push the worst of his childhood and university years to the forefront of his mind while they were drifting. He thought it would keep Newt from seeing what he wished would remain unseen. Sarcasm makes an excellent cover. “You do realize that’s what’s suppose to happen in the neural handshake? Not really a shock then, is it?

“I know that!” Newt’s voice is sharper than he intended. He tries to soften it a bit. “I mean I saw more of your memories. I sort of went back through them this morning, you know, took my time with them to see what I could see.” 

“You deliberately experienced my memories?” 

“Well, yeah. They were in my head and they were data and, fuck it, Hermann. We’ve worked together for ten years and I barely know you. Don’t you think that’s strange?” 

“No. I think it’s ideal.” 

“Stop being such an ass. I know you don’t think that.” Newt’s emotions are running high, a combination of the memories shared through the drift, what those memories have triggered in himself, and a pressing need for greasy food to put the nail in the coffin of his hangover. “I’ve been in your head. I know what I saw.” 

Hermann turns away and attempts to go back to cleaning. “You don’t know what you saw. Just leave it, Dr. Geiszler.” 

“Oh, this is fucking ridiculous.” Newt grabs Hermann’s shoulder, spinning him around, and presses their lips together. They both keep their eyes open and hold their breath. In the grand scheme of kisses, it’s nothing to write home about. 

It’s only when Newt pulls back that Hermann closes his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve been inside your head and I’m trying to tell you that it’s okay.”

“It’s okay?” Hermann’s voice is positively scathing. Newt’s gut tells him to take a step back but he’s always ignored those instincts before, so why start being sensible now? He grasps Hermann’s shoulders more tightly instead. “I am so glad you approve of my feelings. Feelings you were never supposed to know I have. But no, you just had to pry. You arrogant arse!” 

“Will you just shut up?” Newt kisses him again. He forces his eyes closed this time and Hermann’s lips slowly soften beneath his. Newt gives himself a mental fist bump before sliding the tip of his tongue across the seam of Hermann’s lips. He pushes in, his tongue meeting with Hermann’s, and that’s when Hermann breaks. 

It starts with a moan. A moan that comes from the back of Hermann’s throat and bubbles out past their tangled tongues. His hands come up to fist in Newt’s shirt as the cane clatters to the floor. Newt slides his hand from Hermann’s shoulder to his hips and nudges him backward so his weight can rest on a worktop behind him and not on his damaged leg. 

With the new position of his hands, Newt’s thumbs rub circles along the points of Hermann’s hip bones as they kiss. Somewhere in the shuffle, Hermann’s hands have moved to tangle in Newt’s hair and he’s certainly not complaining about the light tugging and scratching against his scalp. 

Giving up the little moans and whimpers Hermann is breathing into his mouth is the last thing Newt wants to do but it doesn’t take six PhDs to know that oxygen is necessary. He pulls away from Hermann’s mouth, the other man’s lips chasing him a few inches until Newt settles his face against Hermann’s neck.

“Jesus. Jesus Christ,” Newt pants against the damp skin of Hermann’s neck. Hermann doesn’t respond so Newt risks an upward glance. Hermann’s eyes are squeezed tightly shut, his breath is ragged, and there’s a red flush high across his cheekbones. He keeps his fingers curled through Newt’s hair. 

Despite the non-response, Newt takes his physical observations as a good sign. He presses his body fully along Hermann’s and nibbles lightly at the skin beneath Hermann’s ear. He can feel the hardness of Hermann’s cock pressing against his hip and that warrants another mental fist bump. 

Newt keeps working his tongue and lips across Hermann’s neck until Hermann is pressing, grinding, his erection into Newt’s hip. It’s way more than he hoped for when he came down here to start...whatever it was he had planned on starting. Newt’s not even sure he knows entirely what he wanted but he’s certainly happy with the result. 

He refocuses his efforts on the underside of Hermann’s jaw, since that damn buttoned up collar is stopping him from going any lower. Hermann shifts and sighs against him and it’s possibly the most relaxed Newt has ever seen the high strung scientist before. Time to up the ante then. 

Newt’s hands move to Hermann’s flies as his mouth again finds Hermann’s ear. “Can I?” 

Hermann is nodding in jerky bursts before Newt fully asks the question. He gives a final suck/bite/lick combo to Hermann’s ear and folds to his knees on the lab floor. He pulls Hermann’s flies open as quick as he can, half afraid the Hermann will come to his senses and put a stop to this whole thing and half afraid that he absolutely cannot wait any longer. Once the zips are out of the way, he yanks Hermann’s briefs (of course they’d be briefs, the least attractive underwear imaginable) and trousers to the tops of his thighs. 

Newt instinctively leans forward as Hermann’s cock bobs free. It’s longer than he might have thought, if he’d taken the time to think at all, but maybe not as thick. It’s pale and flushed pink with the foreskin pulled back to show the much darker head. Newt’s mouth waters. 

That’s when he sees the scar. The ugly knot of skin and gnarled tissue just below Hermann’s right hip. Looking at it brings the swell of pain and fear he remembers from watching Hermann bleeding out in that alley in Berlin years before they met. Newt presses his lips against the starburst center of Hermann’s wound and closes his eyes. 

Hermann goes tense as soon as Newt’s lips make contact. “If this is some sort of pity shag, you can-”

“It’s not. It’s really not.” Newt pulls away from the scar and rests his head against Hermann’s thigh. “I was in your head. I saw everything, but more than saw... I felt it too and I’m trying to tell you, to show you, that it’s not one sided. Okay?”

Newt keeps his eyes closed against the warm heat of Hermann’s thigh until Hermann’s hand once again twist in his hair. He looks up and Hermann’s eyes are squeezed closed and he’s quietly repeated “Okay, okay, okay” over and over again. 

It’s as vocal and enthusiastic an endorsement as Newt’s going to get, so he runs with it. More accurately, he deep throats it. Or tries to. He pulls back coughing and Hermann looks confused and embarrassed. 

“I’m sorry! My fault. It’s been awhile. I thought I could still do it.” 

“It’s been awhile?” Hermann sounds vaguely affronted but still embarrassed. 

“Yeah, grad school was a long time ago. Cut me some slack.” Newt leans forward again, this time wrapping his hand around the base of Hermann’s cock. “I’ll do better this time.” 

He doesn’t wait for a response from Hermann this time. He also doesn’t go for broke the first time out. Instead, he closes his lips around the head of Hermann’s cock and sucks. That’s rewarded with a sharp inhale, sucked between Hermann’s teeth, and a tightening of the grip against Newt’s head. So, he’s on the right track then. 

He works his mouth down, sliding his tongue to that spot where the foreskin bunches a bit against the frenulum. It’s always been a favorite point for him, so why not see if it works on Hermann? The sharp kick of Hermann’s hips are a good indicator that it was, so Newt sucks harder and presses with his tongue. 

Newt makes it his mission to work his mouth all the way down to the base of Hermann’s cock before this is over. He slides down as far as he can, then back up with more suction. He thinks of it sort of like stretching: each time you push yourself you should be able to take a little more. The collection of whimpers and stifled moans coming from Hermann cannot be counted as a complaint against his technique. 

He’s somewhere around two thirds of the way down Hermann’s shaft when he really starts to taste that bitter tang against the back of his throat. Newt wants to hold Hermann there, to suck every drop out of him and swallow it all down. Now he’s the one that’s moaning as he tries to hold Hermann’s cock at the perfect tipping point against the back of his tongue. 

Newt pulls his gaze upward, needing to see Hermann’s face, only to discover that Hermann’s eyes are squeezed tightly closed. That causes Newt to pull back, to pull off completely.

“Hey. Hey, look at me.” 

Hermann keeps his eyes shut tightly and lips pressed together. He shakes his head with jerky movements.

“No way, you have to look at me.” 

Hermann lets out a shaky laugh. “If I look at you, we’ll be done. I’ll be done.” 

Newt is more proud of that than he would have though. “Okay, okay, that’s fine. Just look at me. Please.”

It takes several seconds, several seconds of Newt sitting on his knees with Hermann’s cock enticingly close to his mouth, until Hermann finally opens his eyes. He takes a few shaky breaths before nodding for Newt to continue. 

Newt takes as much of Hermann as he can, tongue pressing and moving along the underside of Hermann’s cock. He keeps his eyes rolled up, looking over the top of his glasses to watch Hermann’s face. 

He can tell it’s a struggle for Hermann to keep his eyes open, to keep his gaze locked with Newt’s. Hermann’s natural reaction will always be to look away from something heady and intense, but he went into the drift with Newt and if he did that he can at least look at the man while he comes down his throat. At least, that’s how Newt feels about it. 

Judging from the shallow jumps Hermann is trying to stop his hips from making, he’s not going to have to look at Newt long. His legs are shaking and Newt wraps his free hand around Hermann’s right thigh for support. Newt’s not sure if it offers physical support but at least the emotional support is grounded through Hermann’s weakest point. 

“New... ahhh... Newton!” Hermann’s cry is quiet, relative to how loudly other lovers may have called his name but it’s just as strong. When the first splash of hot, salty come hits the back of Newt’s tongue, his eyes close and that point of connection with Hermann breaks. 

Newt rides out the rest of Hermann’s short spurts, the roll of his hips, and grasping of his hands in the short hair at the back of Newt’s neck. When Hermann’s grasp goes slack, Newt leans back and feels a twinge of loss when Hermann’s limp cock slides from his mouth. 

He stays on his knees, head resting against Hermann’s thigh, breathing heavily for several moments. Hermann’s hands fall to his shoulders and gently try to tug him upward.

“You have to- I mean, I can’t.... I can’t- on the floor. I can’t kneel on the floor.” 

Newt rises up to meet Hermann immediately. He can tell Hermann is ashamed and he doesn’t want him to feel that way, not ever, but especially not after an improptu lab blow job. He presses quick kisses to Hermann’s throat and face.

“No, you don’t have to. It’s fine. Here.” Newt rips open his flies and snags Hermann by the wrist. He shoves Hermann’s hand under the waistband of his boxer briefs (perfectly acceptable underwear for an adult under 60 years old to wear). “Here, just... just do that. That.” 

Hermann closes his fist around Newt’s cock and strokes up with a firm twist at the top. Newt’s knees go weak and he pushes his trousers and pants to the floor as fast as he can. With more room to work, Hermann’s hand moves stronger and faster. 

Newt keeps his head pressed to the crook of Hermann’s neck. _Don’t bite him. Don’t bite him. Jesus Christ, don’t bite him._ That refrain runs through Newt’s head until Hermann’s chin begins insistently nudging at Newt’s temple. 

“Your mouth. Bring it up here.” Newt hurries to kiss Hermann. He’s pressing most of his weight against Hermann now and if it weren’t for the worktop behind then, he’d have knocked Hermann to the ground. Hermann’s kissing him hard and his tongue thrusts in time with the strokes along Newt’s shaft. Newt rocks his hips and when Hermann shows no reluctance, he ends up fucking Hermann’s fist. The keep kissing, hard and deep, until Newt is sure that Hermann must have licked all traces of himself from Newt’s mouth. 

Finally, Hermann pulls away. “What do you need? Tell me what you need.” 

If Hermann’s brave enough to ask, Newt’s not going to disappoint him. He refuses to let Hermann be embarrassed by anything they’ve done, by anything he hopes they’re going to do, so he won’t be embarrassed by this. 

“Talk to me. Say something dirty to me. Say anything dirty.” 

It takes Hermann a moment. A moment of charged silence between them while his hand still works on Newt’s cock. Just as Newt was growing used to the silence between them again, Hermann’s voice slides between them, deep and low. “Come on me. I want you to come on me. I want you to soak me.”

“Holy-holy Christ.” Newt snaps his hips forward and Hermann pulls him close. He can feel the head of his cock rub against the smooth skin of Hermann’s abdomen. The coarse hair nestled above Hermann’s spent cock scratches against Newt’s shaft and he is lost. He comes in powerful bursts against Hermann’s skin. 

When Newt’s breathing slows back to something approaching normal, his face is pressed to the base of Hermann’s neck and Hermann has his chin tucked against the top of Newt’s head. Newt can look down Hermann’s body, past the terrible sweater, to his sagging trousers and the thick lines of white liquid dripping through his pubic hair and trailing down his flaccid cock. And, Jesus, if that isn’t enough to make Newt want to get hard again, nothing is. 

“Come back to my room.” The command is muffled against Hermann’s neck but Newt’s fairly sure he was understood anyway. 

“I need to shower.”

“There’s a shower in my room too, genius. You can even use my soap.” 

Hermann doesn’t respond but he doesn’t let go or push Newt away either. That must be a good sign, but Newt’s legs are tired, his hangover is kicking back in, and he wants to get Hermann horizontal and naked as soon as possible. “Please,” he adds as an afterthought. 

He can feel the movement of Hermann’s jaw against his head as Hermann licks his lips. “Newton, what is this?” 

“A congratulatory fuck?” Newton jokes. When there’s no response from Hermann, he shrugs. “I don’t know. Whatever you want it to be.” 

“I’m fairly confident we don’t want this to be the same thing.” Hermann sounds tired and sad and, fuck it, that’s not what Newt intended at all. 

“Well, I’m fairly confident you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Newt leans back just enough to see Hermann’s face. “Come back to my room and take a shower because my head hurts and I really want to go to sleep next to your naked body, alright?” 

“What about after?” 

“After, I’ll wake you up for another round of enthusiastic shared orgasms and then we’ll have dinner.” 

Hermann rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.” 

“Look, I don’t know. Not for sure, okay? I don’t know what’s going to happen to our lab, or the Shatterdome, or where we’ll go but I want to try this, okay? Is that a good enough answer for now?” 

Hermann nods and Newt kisses him again. The wave of relief that hits Newt when Hermann agrees is overwhelming. He didn’t even realize he had put so much weight and importance on this man wanting to be with him until it was possible he’d be going back to his bunk alone. 

They separate and Newt pulls his trousers and pants back up. Hermann is less lucky when it comes to ease of rearranging his clothes. 

“Do you need a towel?” Newt looks around for anything that isn’t covered in chalk dust or Kaiju blue. 

“There is no single piece of cloth in this lab that I would use on my...” Hermann grimaces and gestures vaguely before tucking himself back into his briefs (which they really are going to have to talk about if this relationship continues) and closing his flies. “I’ll have to stop by my room for a change of clothes.” 

“No! No clothes.” The idea of Hermann being buttoned down and closed up before Newt gets to properly see him naked causes a bolt of panic. 

The long suffering look Newt is well used to settles on Hermann’s face. “I mean for... after. For dinner.” 

“Oh, well. That’s fine then.” Newt scurries to pick up Hermann’s cane and offer it to him. He takes it without comment. They both look about as put together as they’re going to get so Newt takes Hermann’s left and and tangles their fingers together. 

“Come on. Back to bed.” 

“It’s early afternoon.” 

“So? We’ve earned it.” 

“I never should have drifted with you.” Hermann’s grumbling lacks any real bite and Newt grins from ear to ear. 

“You loved it. You love me.” 

Hermann lets himself be dragged from the lab and down the hall by their joined hands. “Maybe I do.”


End file.
